Chapter 2 Literature Review
2.6 The social media landscape of China
Though Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube, the three leading international social
media, cannot be used in Mainland China, China’s social media landscape is not
incomparable with its western counterparts. Mainland China is the world’s largest social
network market with 731 million internet users by December 2016.
According to the 39th China Statistical Report on Internet Development, the largest
social media in China is Wechat, one of the world's most innovative and versatile
mobile application software with many functions from instant messaging, commerce to
payment services. But it is impossible to tell the number of a user’s connections and
how many comments and likes their posts receive. The second largest is QQ, an instant
messaging software which also provides services including online social games, music,
shopping, microblogging, movies, and group and voice chat. A majority of its users are
teenagers who are born after the year 2000, which means they have not entered the job
market. Sina Weibo, a Chinese microblogging website which is quite similar to its
American counterpart Twitter, is the third largest social media with 297 million monthly
active users by September 2016. Compared with Wechat and QQ, Sina Weibo is a more
public platform as most published posts on it are visible to the public.
The initial idea of Weibo (or micro blogging in English) is similar to Twitter. Users
can publish posts and follow other users, celebrities, businesses, and government
agencies. Unlike Twitter, Sina Weibo allows users to post under 2,000 Chinese
characters and upload photos or relevant files. Sina Weibo is mostly used for the
acquisition of news and information. Users can also perform live broadcasting, buy and
sell products, start polls, play games, upload short videos, and make money via
advertisement, paid posting, monetary rewards by other users and paid subscriptions.
Before 2013, Netease, Sohu, Tencent, and Sina Weibo all attracted many users.
However, according to the 33rd China Statistical Report on Internet Development, the
total number of Weibo users slumped 27.83 million in the year 2013. Among them,
37.4% turned to Wechat. Since then, the Weibo market was restructured. Netease, Sohu,
and Tencent gradually stopped investing in their Weibo service and later fully
suspended it. In the first half of the year 2015, since its competitors quit the market,
Sina Weibo established itself at the dominant position. Due to the attraction of
celebrities and its investment in short video and live broadcasting, users have been
drawn back to Sina Weibo, and later it became the third largest social media in
Mainland China (China Internet information center, 2017).
Seeing its potential for advertising and marketing, companies signed up for their
own Sina Weibo accounts to reach their target consumers. Around 40% of micro
blogging verified accounts are company accounts. According to the 39th China
Statistical Report on Internet Development (2017), there were 164,522 government
official accounts by December 2016. The number of celebrities and businessmen, who
use Sina Weibo to promote themselves has also been growing exponentially, giving rise
to “the Wanghong economy” (or Internet celebrity economy) in 2016. There are two
types of Wanghongs (or internet celebrities) in China – those who create original
content and the “fashionistas”. The first type produces high quality content on social
media to attract users’ attention. When they have enough followers, companies will pay
them for advertising products. The other type uses social media to sell their self-brand
products via customer to customer websites and applications, like Taobao. They post
pictures and video of themselves wearing clothes, or accessories, or makeups of their
own brands, and conduct live streaming sessions at times to interact with their fans,
playing a role as key opinion leaders (KOLs). Both types of Wanghongs highly rely on
the support of their fans, thus there is a new advertising mode in “the Wanghong
economy” that Wanghongs use live streaming to directly interact with their followers.
They are successful examples of personal brands whose strategies can be referred to by
those who also want to promote themselves on social media.
According to the 39th China Statistical Report on Internet Development, live
streaming platforms play an increasingly important role in China’s social media
landscape. By June 2016, there are more than 200 live streaming applications and 325
million live streaming platform users, accounting for 45.8% of the total netizens (Liang
& Luo, 2016). At first, live streaming technology was used to broadcast parties or news
conferences to attract more audience. Then, several large video websites started
embracing live streaming technology. Live streaming channels have been used to
broadcast online games and other User-generated Content. As live streaming is
increasingly popular, many social media, including Sina Weibo, have introduced the live
streaming function to satisfy users’ need.
According to Weibo User Growth Report in 2016, live streaming business gained
great growth momentum. There were more than 23 million live streaming programs in
the third quarter of 2016, which translates to 260,000 programs every day, a 124%
increase from 2015. More than 40% of the users watched more than twenty minutes.
Wanghongs’ success demonstrates that for those who want to build personal brands on
Sina Weibo, live streaming is a good tool to engage followers, grow follower bases, and
enhance their loyalty (Liang & Luo, 2016).
To sum up, individuals, especially freelancers who is not employed by one single
employer, are suggested to treat themselves as brands and take lessons from the
branding strategies of companies. In doing so, individuals can build their personal
brands to respond to the turbulent job market, aiming to differentiate themselves from
competitors and pursue career development. The arrival of the age of social media has
fundamentally changed the world, giving individuals a flexible platform to promote
themselves and more opportunities to gain visibility. Interpreters in China are taken as
an example to see how individuals can build personal brands on social media. In this
light, the purpose of reviewing China’s unique social media landscape and interpretation
market is to help the researcher capture both challenges and opportunities faced by
Chinese interpreters and, in turn, contribute to the further discussion of their personal
branding strategies.